


The Doctor and The Machine

by orphan_account



Series: Doctor Laghari [1]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Cheese, M/M, blackwing speculation, soon to be part of a series, this is really really short oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 02:06:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9695012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A story about a time when Dirk had to learn that someone was not to be trusted the hard way





	

**Author's Note:**

> This whole fic just stems from me wondering how Dirk kept his English accent in Blackwing.  
> Leave any comments you have :)

             The room was cold. It was dank, and it was unforgiving. Every surface appeared to be made of icy unfeeling metal except for the bed, which seemed to consist of thirty pounds of hair pulled out of people’s shower drains. There used to be a wardrobe, too, but on his first day there Svlad had hidden inside and refused to come out, prompting the scientists to take it away.

                The scientists, too, were icy and unfeeling. Svlad refused to make eye contact with any of them, so in his mind their faces were shrouded in shadow. When they spoke their voices were robotic and nowhere near the tone that Svlad was used to being spoken to with. There was nothing warm or sympathetic in their manner, they didn’t act the way most people would around a child as young as Svlad. Nothing in this place was warm or sympathetic.

                Svlad spent what felt like years in that tiny, unforgiving room before finding a reason to have hope.

                The voice was so different from all the other voices. It was the first time in what he thought was forever that Svlad had heard an accent similar to his own. All the other scientist spoke with American accents or accents that Svlad was unfamiliar with.

                The owner of the voice was the first person who Svlad had been brave enough to look directly at.

                Her name was Doctor Laghari, and she was so much nicer than the other doctors. When she interviewed Svlad she was warmer than anything else in that godforsaken place. Everything about her seemed to be warm; her dark skin, her honey-colored hair. She was the only one who could get close enough to Svlad for him to trust her.

                Riggins knew this. He knew Doctor Laghari well enough to see that she would be the only one who could get him to open up. Even Riggins himself, who cared deeply about each and every one of the projects of Blackwing couldn’t convince Svlad of how much he was concerned with his wellbeing.

                In their fifth interview Svlad asked Doctor Laghari whether he could have any more furniture, stating that he was responsible enough now to handle having something other than a bed. The next morning he woke up to a small and rickety chair in the corner of his room. It wasn’t much, but at least it was made of something other than metal.

                Over time Svlad gained more and more furniture and privileges through Doctor Laghari, and eventually even a couple toys. She told him that he was her favorite, and even though it wasn’t true he believed her anyway.

                Years later, when Dirk would look back on his time at Blackwing, the thing he would regret most would be the fact that he had ever trusted Doctor Laghari.

                The doctor was the only reason that Svlad kept his accent. If he had spent all of his time around the American doctors his accent would’ve turned horribly neutral. Svlad actively emulated Doctor Laghari, wanting to be like her in every possible way.

                And things were good, for a time. Svlad was happy, or at least as happy as he could be in his situation, which really wasn’t very much.

                However, things changed when Svlad first met The Machine.

                There were a lot of exercises at Blackwing that Svlad did like. He didn’t mind the big fully-furnished room that the doctors would escort him to, where he would be asked to find a series of objects hidden around him without looking for them. He didn’t mind guessing how many fingers were behind a doctor’s back or what figures were on an overturned card. He didn’t mind these exercises, and he was good at them.

                The Machine was not like these other exercises.

                The Machine looked like a chair, but like most monsters it was a liar. Plenty of monsters pretend to be things they’re not, and The Machine was not an exception. Dirk would later realize that the same could be said of Doctor Laghari.

                Svlad would be told to sit in The Machine by Doctor Laghari, and he would hesitantly comply. A helmet would come down to hug his head, and a screen would swing around to within centimeters from the tip of his nose. The first time Svlad was told to sit in The Machine it scared him, but Doctor Laghari’s soothing tones kept him calm.

                The Machine, in a voice more cold and robotic than that of any of the scientists at Blackwing, told Svlad to follow the dot on the screen with his eyes. That wasn’t the part that Svlad disliked, however. The part that exposed the true evil of The Machine was that whenever Svlad’s eyes tried to wander, to another part of the screen or to look at Doctor Laghari, he would receive a strong electric shock. The more his eyes wandered the stronger the shocks got, and the harder the shocks got the more his eyes became foggy with tears, and the more his eyes filled with tears the harder it became to follow the dot.

                The first time Svlad got into The Machine, he fainted within five minutes. When he awoke to Doctor Laghari standing over him he expected comfort like he would from a parent but instead he only got a disappointed and stern frown.

                This disappointed Svlad, but instead of deterring him he only wanted to do better, to impress her.

                The next time Svlad climbed into The Machine he lasted eleven minutes. This time Doctor Laghari rewarded him with a perfectly patented proud smile and a new stuffed animal, shaped like a giraffe. Svlad took to sleeping with it within a week.

                The next couple times Svlad powered through, but his test scores were getting weaker. Doing it so often began to take its toll.

                The next time that Svlad heard the sound of The Machine rolling towards him, he fought the urge to hide knowing from experience that nothing good would come of it. He instead sat totally motionless on his bed, swaddled in blankets and hugging his giraffe between his knees. By the time the door opened Svlad’s eyes were already filling with tears.

                Doctor Laghari stepped into the room, wearing her perfected warm and welcoming smile.

                When Dirk spoke he tried to be as forceful as he had heard adults be, but his voice was high and strained.

                “Uh, Doctor, I’ve given it some thought and…I’ve decided not to do the treatment this week.”

                Doctor Laghari’s warm smile turned to a knowing and slightly condescending one. “Oh, Svlad” (Doctor Laghari was the only scientist that called Svlad by his name) “I’m sorry, but you can’t do that.” She rested her hand lovingly on The Machine next to her. “No breaks, and no days off.” She turned her smile back to Svlad. “Okay?”

                Svlad nodded minutely, tears now soundlessly flowing down his face. That day, he lasted only three minutes, his lowest score to date.

                That night, Svlad awoke to feel something digging into his skin. He investigated for a moment to find a small blinking camera hidden inside of his giraffe. Dirk, feeling legitimately angry for the first time in a while, stuffed the camera under his pillow and threw the giraffe across the room. The next day someone arrived in his room to remove one of his pieces of furniture, his chair.

~~~

                Todd stared blankly at Dirk.

                “What the hell, Dirk? That’s…that’s, that’s really fucked up.”

                Dirk looked up from the spot on the floor he had been staring at for the past couple minutes to meet Todd’s eyes. “What? Oh. So I did say that all out loud.” His voice was atypically deadpan.

                Todd moved to be closer to his boyfriend on the couch. They had only been dating for a couple weeks, and Todd had to admit this was a lot to dump on someone in the first month. Although he couldn’t blame Dirk; he had asked him to ‘tell me more about Blackwing’ after one of Dirk’s more violent dreams. He had woken up screaming tonight, something he hadn’t done since his first weeks after being rescued from the CIA

                Todd wrapped his arms hesitantly around his boyfriend’s shoulders, kissing slightly wet cheek. “Dirk, Dirk.” Todd said, speaking the way you might to a whining pet—he still wasn’t so great at the whole ‘comforting’ thing, he hadn’t had such an emotional significant other before.

                “You’re so brave.” He said eventually. Dirk turned awkwardly so that their foreheads were pressed against each other. He didn’t seem to know what to say, but he didn’t need to say anything.

  


End file.
